


Vaulting Ambition

by FrivolousSuits



Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: Dubcon Kissing, Episode: s07e10 Donna, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-25
Updated: 2017-09-25
Packaged: 2019-01-05 08:53:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12186864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrivolousSuits/pseuds/FrivolousSuits
Summary: Donna studies Harvey and explains it to herself as preparation, a form of method acting. He’s a perfect actor in his own right– anyone who thinks “Harvey Specter” is anything other than an exquisitely crafted persona has never had the privilege of seeing him in court– and so it’s only fitting for her to throw herself into the role opposite him.





	Vaulting Ambition

**Author's Note:**

> This fic jumped into my head past midnight and demanded to be written. Whelp.

_“You know you’ve thought about it.”_

_“I think about a lot of things.”_

Donna’s been thinking about Harvey Specter ever since she glanced at his picture in the paper. It was grainy, flat, black and white, yet the steely gaze and the curl of the smirk drew her right in. As she sat in a hallway, waiting to be called in for an audition, she smoothed out the page and tried to drink her fill.

As always, the audition went nowhere, and she lost the part to someone with less talent and less understanding of this role’s precise nuances. And as she hung up on the director who rejected her, she decided to track Harvey Specter down and write a part for herself, for a change.

_“I’d love nothing more than to have you on my desk.”_

Oh, yes, she thinks about a lot of things. When she knows Harvey isn’t looking, she steals glances at him, his hair, his jawline. She memorizes his profile, just as she memorizes his walk, the way he rocks on his feet when he’s having fun and the stakes are low, the way his eyes go wide and his eyebrows jump when he flirts–

She studies Harvey and explains it to herself as preparation, a form of method acting. He’s a perfect actor in his own right– anyone who thinks “Harvey Specter” is anything other than an exquisitely crafted persona has never had the privilege of seeing him in court– and so it’s only fitting for her to throw herself into the role opposite him.

* * *

 

Donna knows everything about everyone, but not the way she knows everything about Harvey– his coffee order, his favorite quotes, his social security number. She plucks out the details that others discard as meaningless and hoards them until she can predict his mood from his cufflinks or determine how well a date went from the knot in his tie.

She embraces the role as it consumes her.

She plays hard to get and deflects his attempts at seduction, and she revels in the fact that he will always try again. They are bound by inevitability, by some master storyteller, and Donna has read enough scripts to know their plot lines are intertwined. They’ve been written for one another. Some days Donna’s tempted even to pull out a pen and write poetry– not about herself or Harvey alone, but about them, about their grand fate, about the way they’d be lost without each other. They wouldn’t do so badly as Lady and Lord Macbeth, she chuckles to herself.

* * *

 

During the day, Donna comes alive in the details of a scene– the way the click of her shoes or the snap of her fingers can bring underlings running to her desk– yet at night she muses over the grand scheme of things, the destiny that will bring her and Harvey together one day.

She must miss something in the middle, because one day she realizes that Harvey has stopped trying again.

He’s forgotten that he’s in love with her.

It’s a jarring revelation, like when your co-star who swore he was off-book forgets his lines and just starts gaping at you, halfway through your scene.

* * *

 

Years pass before she snaps: “I am just sick and tired of being everyone's go-to and not getting what I ask for.”

She has spent years in her role, machinating, playing Harvey’s personal _dea ex machina_. She has descended from the heavens to bail him out, she has poured her talent and her genius into the firm (into _him_ ), she knows how he trembled when she left him for Louis, and still he’s swanning about with his therapist.

He deigns to let Donna have her promotion. She’s grateful, she has no choice, but she aches when he acts like the money and the title are full recompense.

* * *

 

After Malik excoriates her on the stand, she’s torn between tears and laughter, because now she’s drowning under all the horrific fallout of a workplace relationship, the rumors and the ugly implications, and she doesn’t even get any of the benefits.

She doesn’t get to wake up to Harvey in bed beside her. She doesn’t get to tie his tie or choose his cufflinks. She doesn’t get to kiss him and be reminded every morning of how he tastes. She just gets to recommend Harvey’s favorite restaurant and nod politely as Paula tells her she already has a reservation.

Louis comes into Donna’s office and implodes, and usually she’d let his words ripple past her like water over a stone, but now they stick, because his despair over losing a soulmate is the most heavy-handed foreshadowing she’s seen in some time. She can feel the plot line of her own life racing ahead without her.

Forgive her if she’s wrung out by the shame and the sheer irony. Forgive her if she’s sick of laying down her life for an oblivious manchild. Forgive her if she’s tired of not getting what she asks for.

When Harvey appears in her office, complaining about something or the other, she realizes the simple solution is not to ask.

She folds her arms around his neck and presses her mouth to his, and on some level she knows he might protest, he might unravel when the implications of infidelity sink in, but part of her thinks it serves him right for being unfaithful to her.

Mostly, she doesn’t care. She’s run dry. She’s out of caring– is this how Harvey feels all the time? it’s terribly freeing– and so she pushes the worries from her mind and concentrates on reminding herself how he tastes, this time without any whipped cream in the way.

She had to know how he tastes.

When she pulls away, she saves a mental snapshot of his expression. She’ll decode it later and fit it into the rest of their story. At first glance, he seems confused, maybe even saddened, but in this game of endless power plays she has the best leverage. The great Harvey Specter is lost without her. She’ll feel guilty, or pretend to, and he’ll accept her apology because there is no other possible resolution. She strides away, secure in the knowledge that he’ll forgive her.

She goes back to her thinking.

**Author's Note:**

> The "You know you've thought about it" exchange was from S03E06. The "I’d love nothing more than to have you on my desk" line was from S05E16. The "I am just sick and tired of being everyone's go-to and not getting what I ask for" line was from S07E01.
> 
> Weirdly, my brain also decided that I must also write a Marvey Hogwarts AU in response to S07E10. That will be posted soon-ish, I hope!


End file.
